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That Toy Story For Kids Is Coming Soon
For my nieces and nephews:
The brand new official trailer for ‘Toy Story 4’ has arrived.
I’m thinking there might be an Uncle Jimmy day at the movie theater this summer. I better start preparing now for the chaos fun!
‘Toy Story 4’ starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Joan Cusack, Keanu Reeves, Jordan Peele, Tony Hale, Keegan-Michael Key, Estelle Harris, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Blake Clark, Bonnie Hunt, Laurie Metcalf, Kristen Schaal, Jeff Garlin, Jodi Benson, Michael Keaton and Timothy Dalton arrives in a theater near you on June 21.
Command-D(iscovery)
Why was the symbol below chosen for the command key on Apple computer keyboards?
(Engadget)
We better call fictional Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon for guidance.
Inspiration for a quest of symbolic proportions is set!
According to a ShortList’s article titled “The story of the Mac command key symbol is way more fascinating than you’d expect,” the moment of truth for the mysterious command key symbol is as follows:
“Our bitmap artist Susan Kare had a comprehensive international symbol dictionary and she leafed through it, looking for an appropriate symbol that was distinctive, attractive and had at least something to do with the concept of a menu command.
“Finally she came across a floral symbol that was used in Sweden to indicate an interesting feature or attraction in a campground… Twenty years later, even in OS X, the Macintosh still has a little bit of a Swedish campground in it.”
This symbol, as the article details, is revealed to be the layout of a 13th-century castle in Sweden from a bird’s-eye view. And while not a quest for divine revelation and consequence like ‘The DaVinci Code,’ it sure was interesting to learn about the symbol at the command of Apple’s keyboard.
And why does this matter?
As the clip above showcases, symbols are in front of us in countless forms and shapes. Most of the time, these symbols go unnoticed. As Ferries Bueller attested, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Truth, courtesy of John Hughes.
Our personal perception impacts our moment-moment thinking, contributing clarity and sometimes cloudiness in various situations. Our mind will see what it wants to see.
The question is what will you want to see tomorrow?
Cinema’s Neighborly Friend
It seems like a match made in heaven a shoe with its laces.
Mia Galuppo of The Hollywood Reporter has reported that America’s favorite everyman Tom Hanks is set to portray America’s favorite next door neighbor of yesteryear:
Mr. Rogers.
The film will be a biopic titled You Are My Friend. Interestingly, Tom Hanks played another affable American icon back in 2013 as Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks co-starring the quick-witted Emma Thompson. Given Mr. Rogers’ sunny disposition that never appeared to set, what was he like beyond his polite TV persona?
Here’s a quick flashback, calming as always in front of the camera.
Where’s my sweater vest…?
Posting Up Against Giants
Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, and Steven Spielberg walk into a newsroom…
Journalism, not the shouting on cable news, is invaluable in a democracy. More specifically, the gritty, old-school reporting approach with pen marks galore, endless stacks of paper and the pursuit of revealing the greater truth to an “off-limits” story instead of merely getting there/yelling something inflammatory first is increasingly becoming a relic of the past.
And it’s in this pre-digital past that Steven Spielberg ventured into for a modern-day reflection. Plus, Mr. Spielberg was able to bring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep together for the first time for a major motion picture.
Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming film The Post isn’t necessarily aiming to revitalize print journalism as much as it seems to be directed towards reigniting the spark of a thoughtful, determined American media.
Considering the times we live, in which news in the political, sports and entertainment spheres are indistinguishably blurred together and run and broadcasted by powerful insiders (former athletes, political operatives, and commentators on both sides, etc.), the question that lingers is, “Who can those on the outside trust?”
It is likely that The Post won’t comprehensively answer this critical question, but this film will transport audiences back to a time when there was information you knew and information you didn’t know. “Metrics” and “analytics” hadn’t yet become fancy synonyms for information. Journalists took a breath, focused and refocused a few times, went to work all day and night while framing a report in a context that far exceeded the words and margins of the said story.
Even when the story was (like in this film) larger-than-life and full of high-level risks and stakes for a nation asking important high-level questions.
The leaking of the Pentagon Papers had its fair share of controversy. It will be interesting to see how the legendary director chose to tell and frame historically significant events involving real people. Nonetheless, the Pentagon Papers and the Washington Post have received the top-shelf Spielbergian treatment in The Post that stars Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep set for theatrical release this Christmas.
And then set for ordering on Amazon several months later.
Jimmy's Daily Planet 